Final Fantasy VII Remake Review Thread - Current 88 Metacritic / 89 Opencritic

[DonFerrari]

JWeinCom said:

Runa216 said:

Why not? Comic stories get remade all the time, and films get remade for international audiences all the time, as well. Remakes usually have the same characters, the same world, and MOST of the same story and plot. Based on what I've seen and read, FFVII Remake is exactly that, with a turning point at the end that gives the creators unlimited potential to alter things or go in a different direction. Remake isn't the same as Remaster. If this was a Remaster I'd agree with you, but as it is it's a whole new game made from the ground up with the same characters, same world, same plot, same narrative...at least at first. 

'what-if' scenarios are a completely viable way to remake a piece of media. 'what if aerith survived' is something I genuinely would be SO excited to experience. 'what if' it was a meta story about fandom and creators at war with one another?' is another. I get that some people might not like that, but it's within the realm of what can be considered a 'remake' for sure, even if it's on the fringes. 

Also, only part 1 is called 'remake', and it's pretty faithful. PArts 2 and 3 might do the chaos theory thing and end up in a wholly different direction. That excites me so much more than just retreading what we already got. Would a shot for shot remake of FFVII in a new engine with a new gameplay genre be ballin? yeah, yeah it would. I'd buy that and love it. would an AU adaptation of the source material that starts with the same building blocks and makes something new and original also be good? yeah, that sounds perfect to me. both sound great, and both are variants on what a 'remake' can be. I think it's just a matter of many fans arguing about what THEIR interpretation of 'remake' is vs what Nomura is interpreting it as. 

I can assure you that, while this is certainly on the fringes, there's nothing wrong with pushing boundaries and going forth into uncharted territory. Who knows, maybe this will be better than the original? You can't really know until you play through the whole thing. That's kind of the point I'm trying to get across, here. I can totally agree that this might be a direction people will be upset about, but I see WAY too much premature bitching about how it's ruining the sanctity of the game's narrative before we even know what direction it's going. All we know is that they've opened the doors to dozens of different possibilities.

When this all started, it sounded like a linear path. Now, it sounds like a branching path with dozens of potential end points. We still exist within the world of FFVII, we're still starting from the same point, but the idea that we could get a wholly new experience out of this has me more excited for Final Fantasy than I've been since 2006. XV was good, but this looks far, FAR better. 

When has a comic ever been remade?  I've never seen anything in the comic book industry referred to as a remake.  The Spider-man movie is not a remake of a comic book.  I'm not even sure how that would work.  I've been a comic book fan for the last two decades, and I've never heard of a comic book remake.

The bulk of your post talks about how you like the changes, and if that's so, then great for you.  Hope you enjoy the game.  Doesn't change the fact that this isn't what anyone else means by the term remake. 

If you call my pizzeria and order a large pizza and I come to your house with a giant slice of rye bread with salsa and cheddar cheese, you'd be confused and upset.  You wouldn't say "oh well we just need to expand our definition of what pizza could be" or "oh well that's just his definition of pizza".  You'd say this isn't pizza.  And you'd be right.  Because if everyone means one thing by a word, and I use that word to describe something different, then I am being misleading.

Let's assume though the word remake is vague for argument's sake.  Then we look to other things in the marketing to see what fans should have expected.

"Of course, all the memorable elements and key moments from the original have been faithfully reproduced, and you can enjoy experiencing those again."

There are moments that have definitely not been faithfully reproduced, and cannot be enjoyed again, and it is heavily implied that other moments will not be faithfully reproduced either.  And if Aeris lives as you would like, then one of the most important moments will not be reproduced.

"In terms of how faithful the remake is to the original Final Fantasy VII, from the perspective of the storyline, it is very faithful indeed." 

Also just not true.  Once you introduce all the meta and alternate reality stuff, this is not very faithful to the storyline.  Despite being asked several times, nobody can provide an example of a less faithful remake, so calling this "very faithful" is clearly misleading.

 "Well, the main story is still the same, but I have added in many new scenes that happen between the main events of the original, which show how the relationship between Cloud and the other characters deepened. [For example], Cloud's childhood friend Tifa shows him a flat in Midgar, and they come to live in the same building. It is a Japanese-styled flat and the scene itself is quite sweet. So, I want people to look forward to [those additions]."'

This is what people expected.  The main plot being the same, but details being added to fill in holes or flesh things out that did not rewrite the story or contradict the established plot.  Not what we got.

Based on how the word remake is used, and what the developers had said, this is not the product they have been advertising, and fans who wanted what was advertised have reason to be upset.

If you want to use your comicbook saviness you know fully well what is a reboot, since that is something they do every 5-10 year. And that isn't what was made here.